


Kansas

by messier51



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Austin - Freeform, Blake Shelton - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Ficlet, Fluff, Human Castiel, M/M, One-Shot, Phone Calls & Telephones, Pining, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7490802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messier51/pseuds/messier51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been over a year since Dean ran away from the best thing that ever happened to him. </p><p>Based on the Blake Shelton song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1DTsxBOfE%20">Austin</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kansas

It’s been 14 months since Dean passed through Pontiac on a _business trip_. The extra week (no, it was 10 days, he corrects himself) he spent there, drowning in blue eyes and the most comfortable bed? That had been the blizzard, the cold, the really good coffee. He’d run out excuses to stay eventually, and the instinct to run, to seek safety in what he knows had been too strong.

Check in on Sammy.

Wash the salt off the car.

Store the guns, sharpen the knives.

Dean thought about calling a few times, but this is the first time he’s had the guts to dial. Over a year is a long time, but Dean is learning to either address things head-on or let them go. He still can’t forget Cas. Which is why he’s staring at the numbers on his phone’s screen, thinking about how he needs _some kind_ of an answer. So that he can let things go, finally.

Or maybe he could go back.

But it’s no good to think about that too much. It’s not like he left in a way that Cas would have thought… he hadn’t even kept the phone. What if Cas had called it? But Dean had told him he wouldn’t be available at that number before he left, right? He had been so afraid…

The drive from Pontiac to Lebanon was so cold and so quiet. And so lonely.

Dean presses the call button and waits until his heart drops back into place before putting the phone to his ear.

After four rings, a voicemail tone picks up the line. Dean almost hangs up, except that there’s Cas’s voice, and it’s like he’s there in the cozy little kitchen at the center of the world. Like nothing could have changed.

 _If you're calling 'bout the car I sold it_  
_If this is Tuesday night I'm at my brother’s._  
 _If you're selling something I don’t want it. Thanks anyway._  
 _Anybody else, wait for the tone,_  
 _You know how phones work._  
 _And P.S. if this is Kansas, I still love you._

Dean almost forgets to push the end button when he pulls the phone away from his ear. He leaves the phone on the coffee table and picks up his keys.

The sign for Marysville in 11 miles trips a wire in Dean’s head before he realizes he’s headed towards Illinois. With no real plan. He can’t do this right now, he needs… he needs to shave. And actually talk to Cas, first. He has to be sure.

Cas had used the word love precisely once, and Dean had run away. It had been too much.

The voicemail could be a ghost message on an old phone. Or maybe it’s a different Kansas. Dean reaches for his phone before he remembers that it’s still sitting on a coffee table in Lebanon.

He keeps driving until he runs out of gas, fills up, and drives some more.

The road sounds empty under his wheels.

☏

Three days, Dean waits. More precisely, he argues with himself, and agonizes, and worries he might be wrong. He also worries that he might be right. What if it’s too late? What if it’s too soon? What if every minute he waits is a mistake?

He doesn’t tell Sam. He doesn’t know what he’d say.

This time when he pushes the call button, he’s equal parts anxious and excited. When he hears Cas’s voice, he forgets whether or not he knew what he was going to say.

 _If it's Friday night I'm at the orchard_  
_And first thing Saturday, if it doesn’t rain_  
 _I'm headed up north to the lake_  
 _And I'll be gone all weekend long._  
 _Leave your number and I'll call you when I get home Sunday afternoon._  
 _And P.S. If this is Kansas, I still love you._

Dean takes a deep breath and leaves his phone number. Nothing else. After Cas’s words, Dean stumbles reciting his own digits.

He spends the weekend with Sam and Jody, for moral support. He didn’t look at his phone, but he kept it charged and the volume turned up.

He doesn’t go looking for Cas’s Facebook when Sam suggests it. He doesn’t want to know, not yet.

☏

Sunday passes too slowly, and then too quickly. Dean’s phone doesn’t leave his hand.

Sam and Jody leave him alone, but they don’t make him leave either.

When Cas finally does call, Dean stares at the screen. He clenches the piece of paper with words scribbled and crossed out and rewritten in his hand.

Cas hears:

 _If you're callin' 'bout my bed It's too cold, and too big_  
_And the coffee_  
 _Never tastes quite right._  
 _It shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out why._

_And I even miss the stupid way you’ve always said the word ‘Kansas’ and you should say something because  
I’m not just some voicemail message…_

 

“Dean.”

It’s one word, and it breaks Dean’s heart. There’re more words on the page, but it’s creased and damp. The words he can’t say get crushed in his fist. He wants to get in his car again, and drive back to Pontiac. But first, Cas needs to know.

“Cas, I need to tell you, I need--”

“I know.”


End file.
